5 ms·

This provides good context: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/effective-altruism-as-a-tower-of https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/effective-altruism-as-.

This provides good context: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/effective-altruism-as-a-tower-of https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/effective-altruism-as-... EA is a very very tempting horse to beat, to the point it's their own internal favorite sport. There are large quantities of ink spilled criticizing it, from inside and outside. But it is all pretty worthless without taking a look at the foundations of the movement.

margalabargala 4y ago
That essay kind of straw-mans the whole thing. He uses EA to alternatively mean the foundational philosophy, or the specific organization and the choices the people running it make, interchangeably. "I don't think AI is a risk, so I'm opposed to EA" charitably means that that person is opposed to EA, the organization headed by the people named in the article, and the choices they have made, who have made themselves the face of the movement with the same name. It doesn't mean they think that helping people is bad. It's one of those fun language tricks groups get to play when there's a movement of some sort, and then a specific organization pops up with the exact same name. Black Lives Matter famously did the same thing; great movement, but the organization with the same name has done some questionable things with the money they were given.
- radu_floricica 4y ago
  I don't have the feeling the criticism in this thread is directed at a specific organization. The top negative comment refers to the name "effective altruism", and most comments are pretty general.
blitzar 4y ago
> to the point it's their own internal favorite sport. Surely this is a massive irony - the time wasted debating it is time where they could have been collectively earning millions or billions to donate to worthy causes.
- concordDance 4y ago
  Yes, listening to criticism is all well and good... for a time. But eventually you'll realize you need to just block and ignore the naysayers and do you own thing. Which, to be fair, the 95% of effective altruists that you never hear about do.

margalabargala 4y ago

That essay kind of straw-mans the whole thing. He uses EA to alternatively mean the foundational philosophy, or the specific organization and the choices the people running it make, interchangeably. "I don't think AI is a risk, so I'm opposed to EA" charitably means that that person is opposed to EA, the organization headed by the people named in the article, and the choices they have made, who have made themselves the face of the movement with the same name. It doesn't mean they think that helping people is bad. It's one of those fun language tricks groups get to play when there's a movement of some sort, and then a specific organization pops up with the exact same name. Black Lives Matter famously did the same thing; great movement, but the organization with the same name has done some questionable things with the money they were given.

radu_floricica 4y ago
I don't have the feeling the criticism in this thread is directed at a specific organization. The top negative comment refers to the name "effective altruism", and most comments are pretty general.

blitzar 4y ago

> to the point it's their own internal favorite sport. Surely this is a massive irony - the time wasted debating it is time where they could have been collectively earning millions or billions to donate to worthy causes.

concordDance 4y ago
Yes, listening to criticism is all well and good... for a time. But eventually you'll realize you need to just block and ignore the naysayers and do you own thing. Which, to be fair, the 95% of effective altruists that you never hear about do.